Japan's TonenGeneral halts 2 CDUs ahead of scrapping

May 20, 2013|Reuters

TOKYO, May 21 (Reuters) - TonenGeneral Sekiyu KK,Japan's second-biggest oil refiner, said it did not operate twoof its six crude distillation units (CDUs) in January-Marchahead of the company's plans to scrap the units by next March.

The company did not comment on when the two CDUs, the 67,000barrels-per-day (bpd) No. 1 CDU at Kawasaki refinery and the38,000 bpd No. 2 CDU at Wakayama refinery, were shut.

Industry sources say the company has no plans to restart theCDUs as it is making preparations to decommission them.

TonenGeneral, which is 22.2 percent owned by Exxon Mobil, announced in February that it would scrap the two CDUs,cutting its refining capacity by 105,000 bpd out of a total of661,000 bpd to meet government rules on improvingcompetitiveness, following similar plans set by its rivals.